1 JULY 1899, Page 34

Henrik Ibsen and Bjgrnstjerne Bji;rnson. By George Brandes. (W. Heinemann.)—Professor

Brandes has studied Ibsen for thirty years, his "First Impression" being dated in 1867, and his" Third Impression" in 1893. Of Bjornson he writes once only, but then the latter has not developed. We have no inten- tion of entering on a pro-Ibsenite or anti-Ibsenite campaign. Professor Brandes has much to say about his dramatic genius. To us Scandinavian literature has something strange, we might say sinister, about it. It was to be seen in the fiction of Frederik* Bremer ; in Ibsen it is very strongly marked. It strikes one the more from the contwast which it seems to present to the sim- plicity of Scandinavian life. One might compare it to finding Thyestean tragedy in the midst of Arcadia.